Re: Hello and Gaming Question

On Thu, 17 Oct 2002 20:02:02 -0500
"Joe Brault" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hello everyone, this is my first post to the group so just wanted to
> say hi :) I installed Gentoo this afternoon and am currently emerging
> gnome with no major problems so far :)
> 
> I have a question however on gaming in Linux.  I'm relatively new to
> Linux... i've used it on and off for several years, using such
> versions as mandrake, slackware, and now gentoo, but have never really
> gamed much in Linux.  I know not much support is available, but I have
> heard that Counter-Strike can be played in Linux and was wondering if
> anyone could shed some light on how this would be possible for me to
> do?  Any and all help is appreciated, thanks much!
> 
>  - Joe :)

Hi. Use WineX (Wine Is Not an Emulator + DirectX extensions) in order to
run your Windows games. WineX is the same as Wine but has specific
enhancements to provide DirectX support, which will be required by your
games. Direct3D graphics are translated into OpenGL on the fly so that
the graphics can render in Linux. So make sure you've got 3D
acceleration working in Linux as a pre-requisite. If you have an nVidia
card then this is easy:

   emerge nvidia-glx
   opengl-update nvidia

Otherwise you need to compile in DRI support for your video card in the
kernel config (if it's available, ATI Radeon, Voodoo etc). Even if DRI
support isn't available, you still might be able to use 3D acceleration
for your card depending on whether the XFree driver supports it.

Now:

   emerge winex

Then read the documentation and look at "winex --help". The good news is
that the first time you run winex, a fairly sensible configuration file
is generated in your home diretory. You shouldn't need to make that many
modifications to get a workable setup. The most important thing is
mapping a virtual windows drive (D: for example) to a directory on your
Linux filesystem. You will see that things like /mnt/cdrom are already
mapped for you. This means you can do things like:

   winex /path/to/installer.exe    (will work, so long as a relationship
with a drive letter is configured)
   winex d:\installer.exe          (ditto)

I would strongly recommend that you look a the official WineX site,
http://www.transgaming.com , to check out the compatibility list. Also
worth knowing is that the free version of WineX does not support copy
protected CDs, unlike the commercial version. This isn't going to matter
for Half-Life/CS. There is also a forum on the gaming topic at forums.gentoo.org.

--kerframil